Introduction: “When is it moral for a civil society to permit, authorize, or use coercion?” As I attempt to address this complex question adequately, I want to set out four basic concerns that ...
Harder Than it Looks
Without Double Standards, No Standards at All
“And so it was that the two women drove off, back to their natural habitat, a deep thicket of double standards. No language was off-limits, no matter how crass, so long as it was uttered in the celebration of vice; and no language that indicated any level of disapproval of vice, no matter how mild, could be tolerated for a moment. All of it was lumped under the catch-all word hate.”
Ride, Sally, Ride, p. 146
What the Black Eye Hid
“Stephanie leaned forward intently, and with a really fierce look on her face. Her good eye was fiery, and we may guess that the other one was fiery also, if we could only have seen it.”
Ride, Sally, Ride, p. 139
Our Wounded Duck Football Punt Election
Introduction: I have an encouraging word for those who really care about the future of our nation, all fourteen of them. I think it would be fair to describe these people as having a serious case of the jumps, and they need a word of encouragement. And I speak in jest — I know there …
Spelunking Down Below
“He appeared to be the kind of man in whom the tag self-awareness had almost no place to attach itself. If self-deception were a form of spelunking, he came across as the kind of person who would have been lost in Carlsbad Caverns for more than a few years now.”
Ride, Sally, Ride, p. 137
The Tuesdaytudinous Letters
Letter to the Editor: So, I just wanted to say, I read Ride, Sally, Ride over the weekend, and it was so, so good. Like really good. I read Flags Out Front a couple months ago, and have a ...
If Babylon Had Phones
“But, as Stephanie had guessed, there was plenty of other stuff on his phone, stuff that would be illegal even in Colorado as it had now become. We might even go so far as to say that he had stuff on his phone that would have been illegal in Belshazzar’s Babylon. So, as I say, he bolted from the room.”
Ride, Sally, Ride, p. 132
Jitney Jezebels and “Ride, Sally, Ride”
Introduction: So my latest novel is now out and about. It is entitled Ride, Sally, Ride. And what I would like to do here, besides encouraging you to get five or six of them, is actually to embrace one of the criticisms that some have made about the book thus far. I am, of course, …
Yeah, Dwight
“Why did you molest me, then, Dwight?” She put as much English spin on her Dwight as she could. If Dwight were a ping-pong ball, he would have hit the table and then bounced sideways.”
Ride, Sally, Ride, p. 130